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29 SFU and UBC Professors

Mayor
Gregor Robertson and City Councillors, City of Vancouver, 453 West 12th
Avenue, Vancouver

Dear Mayor Robertson and Councillors:

Re: January 20, 2011 Council Meeting on
the Historic Area Height Review Update.

We, the
undersigned, are professors at Simon Fraser University and the University of
British Columbia with an interest in the fate and well being of Vancouver’s
Downtown Eastside neighbourhood.

We
therefore note with concern the recommendation before Council to change the
allowable heights in the ‘Historic Area’, which includes much of the Downtown
Eastside. The effect of this will be to increase permitted heights on several
sites. Assuming, as seems inevitable, that this facilitates market housing, we
fear that this will lead to a further reduction of affordable housing in the
surrounding area, particularly that of the residential hotels. This will have a
devastating effect on low-income residents and the continued vitality and
viability of the neighbourhood as a whole. We believe that planning in the
Downtown Eastside should have at its centre the interests of the most
vulnerable, rather than risk further destabilizing a community that is already
facing intensifying pressures.

Market
development, if wisely managed with the insights of the low-income community,
can bring benefits to the Downtown Eastside. However, it can, and has, also led
to increasing rents, conversions and displacement. We encourage Council not to
proceed with the Height Review until a more thorough community based planning
process is conducted, a cornerstone of which should be the improvement and
protection of the affordable housing stock of the Downtown Eastside.

Yours sincerely,

Nicholas
Blomley, Ph.D.

Professor, Geography,
SFU

Elvin Wyly,
Ph.D.

Associate
Professor, Geography;

Chair,
Urban Studies Program, UBC

David Ley,
Ph.D.

Fellow of
the Royal Society of Canada,

Canada
Research Chair,

Professor
and Head of Department, Geography, UBC

Samir
Gandesha, Ph.D.

Assistant
Professor, Humanities, SFU

Eugene
McCann, Ph.D.,

Associate
Professor, Geography, SFU

Jeff
Derksen, Ph.D.

Associate
Professor, English, SFU

Nicolas
Kenny, Ph.D.

Assistant
Professor, History, SFU

Dara
Culhane, Ph.D.

Associate
Professor, Anthropology, UBC

Jamie Peck,
Ph.D.

Canada
Research Chair in Urban & Regional Economy

Professor,
Geography, UBC

Donald
Grayston, PhD, former director, Institute for the Humanities, SFU; theologian
and public educator

Derek Gregory, Ph.D., Professor, Geography, UBC

Fellow of
the British Academy; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; Dr. h.c
(Heidelberg); Dr. h.c. (Roskilde)